What is the Child and Youth Mental Health Information Network?

The Child and Youth Mental Health Information Network (CYMHIN) is a loosely-structured cooperative amongst several large organizations that provide information about children’s mental health problems, in the province of Ontario.

Educators Guide to Child and Youth Mental Health (New!)

Making a Difference is developed by the Student Support Leadership Initiative, Hamilton District Team In partnership with E-BEST (the Evidence-based Education and Services Team) at the Hamilton-Wentworth District School Board, the Offord Centre for Child Studies, McMaster University, and the Provincial Centre of Excellence for Child and Youth Mental Health, Children’s Hospital of Eastern Ontario.

One in five students experiences mental health challenges, but few receive any treatment. These students remain in the classroom, where their mental health challenges can affect their academic achievement. This easy to read guide has the essentials that educators need to know in order to identify and support students with mental health needs in the school setting.

These downloadable handout provide practical, evidence-informed information about child and youth mental health. They are specifically written for families, but health (and school) professionals will find them helpful as well.

To work collaboratively to produce and disseminate high-quality, evidence-based information about child and youth mental health problems that informs and educates young people, their families, mental health professionals, and all those with an interest in children and youth.

Our Mission

To work collaboratively to produce and disseminate high-quality, evidence based information about child and youth mental health problems
that informs and educates young people, their families, mental health professionals, and all those with an interest in children and youth.

the Hospital for Sick Children’s Community Health Resource Group, two university and hospital-based research centres;

the Evidence-Based Education Services Team (E-BEST) at a major school board;

the Provincial Centre of Excellence for Child and Youth Mental Health, a government-funded centre with a broad mandate to improve mental health services delivered across Ontario.

(The organization eMentalHealth.ca was one of the founding members, however is now an initiative of the Provincial Centre of Excellence for Child and Youth Mental Health)

What does CYMHIN do?CYMHIN member organizations meet on a regular basis, either by teleconference or in person, to share ideas and work together on projects of common interest. While the member organizations share common projects and goals, each organization acts independently in exploring new and innovative ways to move evidence into practice. Some of the organizations conduct research activities in knowledge translation and implementation science, and others are more focused on the practicalities of how to move new knowledge directly into the field.

Our Principles

Organizational Principles

Respect the mission, goals and objectives of each of the network partner organizations which are collectively committed to fostering collaboration both provincially and nationally;

Promote and facilitate collaborative opportunities that will enhance the capacity of network partner organizations to achieve goals and objectives held in common;

Actively seek alliance with other organizations that share or support the goals of the network to engage in specific activities to achieve the network's objectives;

Engage in activities as a network that benefit from the synergy of working together, while respecting the need for the individual organizations to maintain and develop their own related activities;

Shared leadership within the network means that different partner organizations will take leads for different activities at different times;

Respect the unique expertise, responsibilities, capacity and independence of each network partner organization; and

Maintain a focus on priorities and add value to the work of partner organizations

Operational Principles

Information that is developed by the network must reflect the best evidence available at the time and that evidence must be credible.

All information resources must undergo a clear and transparent review process by clinical experts and end users.

The ways in which the information is delivered must reflect our best knowledge about effective consumer health information and its mobilization.

Authorship of individual resources will be acknowledged.

Resources that are developed through the network will be freely licensed under a Creative Commons License, specifically the “Attribution-Noncommercial-No Derivative Works 2.5 Canada License”. Individuals will be free to share (including copying and distributing), provided that the material is not altered, authorship is acknowledged, and that the resources are not used commercially.

The network will establish, by consensus, priorities for information projects.

The information priorities will be determined by the scientific rigour, clinical relevance, and currency of the information.

Network members will work together to seek resources to develop the priority areas.

Each individual member may develop materials not within the priorities, but cannot call on network resources or branding for these materials.

The mission of the network may change over time, to reflect other areas where the partners feel it is mutually beneficial to work cooperatively.

E-BEST (Evidence-Based Education and Services Team) is an innovative initiative of the Hamilton-Wentworth District School Board, and ensures capacity for evidence-based practice for education at a school board level.